BRODBECK: Winnipeg street repair down under Bowman

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman announces the start of Winnipeg's largest construction season in history on June 22, 2018 at the Manitoba Blue Cross building on Empress Street in Winnipeg.DANTON UNGER/Winnipeg Sun/Postmedia Network / SunMedia

Winnipeg homeowners are paying higher property taxes every year but they’re not seeing an increase in the amount of road repair that was promised by Mayor Brian Bowman.

Bowman and city council have increased property taxes every year since 2015 and have pledged that 2% of the tax hike would be used solely to boost the amount of street repair in the city.

But the city’s own road construction statistics show the number of kilometer lanes of streets that have undergone reconstruction or rehabilitation fell from 2015 to 2017.

In 2015, Bowman’s first full year in office, 9.7 kilometer lanes of regional roads underwent full reconstruction. That increased slightly to 11.3 kilomters the next year but then fell to 2.8 kilometer lanes in 2017. Similarly, 57.8 kilometer lanes of regional streets were rehabilitated in 2015 (rehabilitation is a less costly form of street resurfacing) but less than half that number was rehabilitated last year.

Local road reconstruction also fell during those three years from 27 kilometer lanes of repair in 2015 to 17.9 km last year. And local street rehabilitation fell from 84.8 kilometer lanes in 2015 to 78.1 last year.

In other words, taxpayers paid more but got less in road repair during those three years. That’s not what Bowman promised voters in 2014, nor is it what he’s been claiming since taking office.

The 2% hike generated between $10 million and $11 million annually during that period. And while that money did go into the city’s local and regional street renewal reserve fund, the total amount spent on street repair did not rise correspondingly. That’s in large part because the city has also reduced its base funding for road repair.

In fact, the total road repair budget was frozen in 2017 at $105.2 million, the same level it was at the previous year.

It’s no surprise then that the number of roads that were repaired during those three years fell.

And it’s not because the cost of road repair has climbed during that period, either. According to city data, the average cost of regional street reconstruction fell in 2017 to $1.59 million per kilometer lane from just over $2 million in 2014.

It also dropped for regional street rehabilitation and for local street reconstruction. The only average cost that went up slightly was for local road rehabilitation, but barely. It went from $630,000 to $639,000 per kilometer lane.

It appears the amount of street repair has increased in 2018, but the final numbers for that won’t be available for several months.

So while it’s true the city is spending “record amounts” on street repair, that only tells part of the story. It’s what taxpayers are getting for their money that’s important, not how much the city spends on something. And when you dig deeper into the numbers, it’s clear taxpayers are getting less road repair for their dollar than they did before Bowman became mayor.

The city says some of the decline in street repair was because projects got delayed.

“Reconstruction of regional streets also decreased because some projects were deferred or were multi-year projects and design was ongoing,” David Driedger, the city’s manager of corporate communications, said in an email. “In addition, in 2016 there was a first call on 2017 local street funds, therefore several locations that would have been completed in 2017 were completed in 2016.”

Nevertheless, the totals for 2016 and 2017 were down from 2015.

Meanwhile, none of this has been lost on the public’s perception of the state of Winnipeg’s roads. According to the city’s most recent public opinion poll from the 2019 Community Trends and Performance report, 66% of Winnipeggers were satisfied with the conditions of their major streets in 2014, the year Bowman was elected. That dropped to 56% in 2018. It also dipped slightly to 52% from 54% for residential roads in the same period.

Bowman has tried to make road repair one of his main legacies as mayor, saying repeatedly that it’s Winnipeggers’ top priority. Unfortunately for him – and for taxpayers – he has not delivered on that commitment.

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